Download or read book Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology written by Neil DeVotta and published by East-West Center. This book was released on 2007 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study argues that political Buddhism and Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism have contributed to a nationalist ideology that has been used to expand and perpetuate Sinhalese Buddhist supremacy within a unitary Sri Lankan state; create laws, rules, and structures that institutionalize such supremacy; and attack those who disagree with this agenda as enemies of the state. The nationalist ideology is influenced by Sinhalese Buddhist mytho-history that was deployed by monks and politics in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries to assert that Sri Lanka is the designated sanctuary for Theravada Buddhism, belongs to Sinhalese Buddhists, and Tamils and others live there only due to Sinhalese Buddhist sufferance. This ideology has enabled majority superordination, minority subordination, and a separatist war waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The study suggests both LTTE terrorism and the ethnocentric nature of the Sri Lankan state, which resorts to its own forms of terrorism when fighting the civil war, need to be overcome if the island is to become a liberal democracy.The present government of President Mahinda Rajapakse is the first to fully embrace the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist ideology, suggesting that a political solution to Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict is unlikely. Meaningful devolution of power, whereby Tamils could coalesce with their ethnic counterparts amidst equality and self-respect, is not in the offing. A solution along federal lines is especially unlikely. Instead, continued war and even attacks on Christians and Muslims seem to be in store for Sri Lanka as the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist ideology is further consolidated. The study recommends that the international community adopt a more proactive stance in promoting a plural state and society in Sri Lanka. In addition to countering the terrorist methods employed by the LTTE, the international community should initiate and support measures to protect fundamental civil liberties and human rights of Sri Lanka's ethnic and religious minority communities.
Download or read book The Politics and Poetics of Authenticity written by Harshana Rambukwella and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2018-07-02 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of cultural authenticity in the making of nations? Much scholarly and popular commentary on nationalism dismisses authenticity as a romantic fantasy or, worse, a deliberately constructed mythology used for political manipulation. The Politics and Poetics of Authenticity places authenticity at the heart of Sinhala nationalism in late nineteenth and twentieth-century Sri Lanka. It argues that the passion for the ‘real’ or the ‘authentic’ has played a significant role in shaping nationalist thinking and argues for an empathetic yet critical engagement with the idea of authenticity. Through a series of fine-grained and historically grounded analyses of the writings of individual figures central to the making of Sinhala nationalist ideology the book demonstrates authenticity’s rich and varied presence in Sri Lankan public life and its key role in understanding postcolonial nationalism in Sri Lanka and elsewhere in South Asia and the world. It also explores how notions of authenticity shape certain strands of postcolonial criticism and offers a way of questioning the taken-for-granted nature of the nation as a unit of analysis but at the same time critically explore the deep imprint of nations and nationalisms on people's lives.
Download or read book Nationalism Development and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka written by Rajesh Venugopal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the relationship between the ethnic conflict and economic development in modern Sri Lanka.
Download or read book Handbook of Conspiracy Theory and Contemporary Religion written by Asbjørn Dyrendal and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Conspiracy Theories and Contemporary Religion is the first collection to offer a comprehensive overview of conspiracy theories and their relationship with religion(s), taking a global and interdisciplinary perspective.
Download or read book Anil s Ghost written by Michael Ondaatje and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-10-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winning a Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Anil’s Ghost is another award-winning novel from Michael Ondaatje. Steeped in centuries of cultural achievement and tradition, Sri Lanka has been ravaged in the late twentieth century by bloody civil war. Anil Tissera, born in Sri Lanka but educated in England and the U.S., is sent by an international human rights group to participate in an investigation into suspected mass political murders in her homeland. Working with an archaeologist, she discovers a skeleton whose identity takes Anil on a fascinating journey that involves a riveting mystery. What follows, in a novel rich with character, emotion, and incident, is a story about love and loss, about family, identity and the unknown enemy. And it is a quest to unlock the hidden past—like a handful of soil analyzed by an archaeologist, the story becomes more diffuse the farther we reach into history. A universal tale of the casualties of war, unfolding as a detective story, the book gradually gives way to a more intricate exploration of its characters, a symphony of loss and loneliness haunted by a cast of solitary strangers and ghosts. The atrocities of a seemingly futile, muddled war are juxtaposed against the ancient, complex and ultimately redemptive culture and landscape of Sri Lanka.
Download or read book Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka written by Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1998-07-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka explores Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalist ideology and its power to shape the identities of Sri Lanka's ethnic and religious minorities. Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalists in contemporary Sri Lanka share an ideology that asserts a vital link between the island of Sri Lanka and the Sinhala people, especially in their role as curators of Buddhism, and often at the exclusion of the minorities. Minority responses to Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism are manifold, ranging from assimilation to the formation of rival fundamentalisms. The authors provide views of history markedly different from most scholarly reflections on Sri Lanka; thus, the history of shifting perceptions of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism offered here constitutes an important contribution to the subaltern history of Sri Lanka. By treating both the development of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism in the late nineteenth century and its hegemony in the late twentieth, this study links the present to the past.
Download or read book Buddhism Betrayed written by Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1992-07-15 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume seeks to answer the question of how the Buddhist monks in today's Sri Lanka—given Buddhism's traditionally nonviolent philosophy—are able to participate in the fierce political violence of the Sinhalese against the Tamils.
Download or read book In Defense of Dharma written by Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-07-26 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to examine war and violence in Sri Lanka through the lens of cross-cultural studies on just-war tradition and theory. An important contribution to the understanding of the power of religion to create both peace and war.
Download or read book Religion Conflict and Peace in Sri Lanka written by Jude Lal Fernando and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2013 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A detailed and original work on a specific conflict....A useful platform for wider insights into the requirements of conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes more generally." -- Dr. Iain Atack, International Peace Studies, Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity Coll., Dublin *** "A very valuable contribution to the history and the sociology of Sri Lanka and also to the search for a just solution for the Tamils." -- Francois Houtart, Professor Emeritus, Catholic U. of Louvain *** "The author's mastery of Sinhala, Tamil and English has given him a special cultural competence to analyse the Sri Lankan conflict within a geopolitical setting." -- Peter Schalk, Professor Emeritus, Uppsala U. *** "A challenging contribution to an ongoing critical examination of the connection between state and religion." -- Prof. Dr. Lieve Troch, Cultural and Religious Sciences, UMESP, Sao Paulo (Series: Theology, Ethics and Interreligious Relations. Studies in Ecumenics - Vol. 2)
Download or read book Buddhist Extremists and Muslim Minorities written by John Clifford Holt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the civil war in Sri Lanka between Sinhala Buddhists and Tamils ended in 2009, many Sri Lankans and foreign observers alike hoped to see the re-establishment of relatively harmonious religious and ethnic relations among the various communities in the country. Instead, a different type of violence erupted, this time aimed at the Muslim community. The essays in Buddhist Extremists and Muslim Minorities investigate the history and current state of Buddhist-Muslim relations in Sri Lanka, in an attempt to identify the causes of this newly emergent conflict. Euro-American readers unfamiliar with this story will be surprised to learn that it inverts common stereotypes of the two religious groups. In this context, certain groups of Buddhists, generally considered peace-oriented in the West, are engaged in victimizing Muslims, who are increasingly seen as militant. The authors examine the historical contexts and substantive reasons that gave rise to Buddhist nationalism and aggressive attacks on Muslim communities. The rise of Buddhist nationalism in general is analyzed and explained, while the specific role, methods, and character of the militant Bodu Bala Sena (Army of Buddhist Power) movement receive particular scrutiny. The motivations for attacks on Muslims may include deep-seated perceptions of economic disparity, but elements of religious culture (ritual and symbol) are also seen as catalysts for explosive acts of violence. This much-needed, timely commentary promises to shift the standard narrative on Muslims and religious violence.
Download or read book Religious Nationalism in Contemporary South Asia written by Andrea Malji and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Element explores religious nationalism in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism and how it manifests in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. At the core, nationalists contend that the continuation of their group is threatened by some other group. Much of these fears are rooted in the colonial experience and have been exacerbated in the modern era. For the Hindu and Buddhist nationalists explored in this Element, the predominant source of fear is directed toward the Muslim minority and their secular allies. For Sikhs, minorities within India, the fear is primarily of the state. For Muslims in Pakistan, the fear is more dynamic and includes secularists and minority sects, including Shias and Ahmadis. In all instances, the groups fear that their ability to practice and express their religion is under immediate threat. Additionally, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim nationalists wish for the state to adopt or promote their religious ideology.
Download or read book Muslim Perspectives on the Sri Lankan Conflict written by Dennis B. McGilvray and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book When Politics Are Sacralized written by Nadim N. Rouhana and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comparative, interdisciplinary analysis of the invocation and interaction of religious and national assertions in sacralizing local and global politics.
Download or read book Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka written by Jayadeva Uyangoda and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Buddhist Dynamics in Premodern and Early Modern Southeast Asia written by D Christian Lammerts and published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of historical Buddhism in premodern and early modern Southeast Asia stands at an exciting and transformative juncture. Interdisciplinary scholarship is marked by a commitment to the careful examination of local and vernacular expressions of Buddhist culture as well as to reconsiderations of long-standing questions concerning the diffusion of and relationships among varied texts, forms of representation, and religious identities, ideas, and practices. The twelve essays in this collection, written by leading scholars in Buddhist Studies and Southeast Asian history, epigraphy, and archaeology, comprise the latest research in the field to deal with the dynamics of mainland and (pen)insular Buddhism between the sixth and nineteenth centuries C.E. Drawing on new manuscript sources, inscriptions, and archaeological data, they investigate the intellectual, ritual, institutional, sociopolitical, aesthetic, and literary diversity of local Buddhisms, and explore their connected histories and contributions to the production of intraregional and transregional Buddhist geographies.
Download or read book Nation Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka written by Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nation, Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka offers a new perspective on contemporary debates about Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka. In this book de Silva Wijeyeratne argues forcefully that ‘Sinhalese Buddhism’ in the period prior to its engagement with the British colonial State signified a relatively unbounded (although at times boundary forming) set of practices that facilitated both the inclusion and exclusion of non-‘Buddhist’ concepts and people within a particular cosmological frame. Juxtaposing the premodern against the backdrop of colonial modernity, de Silva Wijeyeratne tells us that in contrast modern 'Sinhalese Buddhism/nationalism' is a much more reified and bounded concept, one imagined through a 19th century epistemology whose purpose was not so much inclusion, but a much more radical exclusion of non-‘Buddhist’ ideas and people. In this insightful analysis modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, then, emerges through the conjunction of discourse, power and knowledge at a distinct moment in the trajectory of the colonial State. An intrinsic feature of this modernist moment is that premodern categories (such as the cosmic order) were subject to a bureaucratic re-valuation that generated profound consequences for State-society relations and the wider constitutional/legal imaginary. This book goes onto explore how key constitutional and nation-building moments were framed within the cultural milieu of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism – a nationalism that reveals the power of a re-valued Buddhist cosmic order to still inform the present. Given the intensification of the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist project following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, this book is of interest to scholars of nationalism, South Asian studies, the anthropology of ritual, and comparative legal history.
Download or read book Sri Lanka Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy written by Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the historical events of post-independence Sri Lanka, S. J. Tambiah analyzes the causes of the violent conflict between the majority Sinhalese Buddhists and the minority Tamils. He demonstrates that the crisis is primarily a result of recent societal stresses—educational expansions, linguistic policy, unemployment, uneven income distribution, population movements, contemporary uses of the past as religious and national ideology, and trends toward authoritarianism—rather than age-old racial and religious differences. "In this concise, informative, lucidly written book, scrupulously documented and well indexed, [Tambiah] trains his dispassionate anthropologist's eye on the tangled roots of an urgent, present-day problem in the passionate hope that enlightenment, understanding, and a generous spirit of compromise may yet be able to prevail."—Merle Rubin, Christian Science Monitor "An incredibly rich and balanced analysis of the crisis. It is exemplary in highlighting the general complexities of ethnic crises in long-lived societies carrying a burden of historical memories."—Amita Shastri, Journal of Asian Studies "Tambiah makes an eloquent case for pluralist democracy in a country abundantly endowed with excuses to abandon such an approach to politics."—Donald L. Horowitz, New Republic "An excellent and thought-provoking book, for anyone who cares about Sri Lanka."—Paul Sieghart, Los Angeles Times Book Review
